Wednesday, December 20, 2006

I have a question... Does anyone else have a huge problem in wanting to tell your husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, tree/rock what you got them for Christmas? Every single year, I get Le Wif's gift and have the most difficult time not telling her what I got her.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

There was another squirrel yesterday--that makes six. I'm completely tired of dipping them in water for extended amounts of time, so we've changed methods--we're now mixing rat poison in with the bait. That way, they'll be trapped, they'll die, and then I'll be able to dump 'em. Less fuss. Less water.

I sincerely hope that this works.

Anyone have any experience w/ rat poison? What can I expect? No, I didn't eat any, and I don't plan on it.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Okay. I'm totally sick of killing squirrels. Got the third on Friday, and we thought that would be it--not so. There was another around noon yesterday, and yet another this morning around eight or so. That's five, count'em, five squirrels. All this just to get a hole in our soffit patched up.

Today's squirrel was kind of a bummer; I've since had to switch to a bigger trap, which doesn't completely fit in the bucket of death. This means that I've had to scour the back yard for sticks to shove through the trap, therefore reducing the area in which the squirrels can move around (i.e., below the water line), so that I can actually kill 'em. The one from this morning spent a lot of time shoving his lil' nose through the spaces between the sticks to get breath. I had to hold them in the trap so that he wouldn't break through.

I haven't really had to watch the others die. This one, I had to keep an eye on the whole thing and it was (a) gross, (b) depressing, and (c) very interesting. A very incremental thing, drowning seems to be. There's the first bite of fear as the water is about waist high, then hope that it'll stop as the little bugger creeps higher and higher toward the top of the cage. Then there's desperation, snatching as much breath as is possible, and finally weakness and submission kicks in. He floats to the bottom of the cage, his eyes open. They were trained on me. The little fucker died staring straight at me.

I hope that this is the last one.

I dumped him in a drainage ditch and re-set the trap. Nothing this afternoon.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

I got another one today. Because I got home earlier than usual today, the pictures are easier to see, and therefore more disgusting.

Someone's going to hate me for this, but here's the deal: if you don't dispatch the squirrels, they'll destroy your house, and they'll come back every year to boot. We can't have that, so I'm doing this. These photos aren't necessarily intended to be entertainment alone--there should be some instructional element to this, because people get critters in their houses all the time, and they shouldn't have to pay hundreds of dollars for some company to do something simple enough for someone to do on their own. Without further adieu, here's today's squirrel:

The bucket of death:

Trap in bucket:

The aftermath:

Final resting place for JayJay, the interloping squirrel:

If you happen to have squirrels in your house, and have any questions, let me know. I'm quickly becoming an old pro at this, as anyone with this problem would.

Monday, December 04, 2006

At least two to go. Here are three pictures from the whole squirrel process. The last one is "dead squirrel," but it was dark, so the picture turned out to be kind of impressionistic. Use your imagination and wait for the next squirrel. It'll get a whole lot worse before this thing is over.